node-fork

Look-alike nodejs 0.6.x child_process.fork() function module for nodejs 0.4.x and 0.6.x

Important API change!

As of node-fork version 0.3.0 the API has been changed to require('fork').fork; to get a reference to the fork() function

Differences between fork() for nodejs 0.6.x and node-fork

• Instead of using the stdin channel for communicating with the child process (nodejs 0.6.x), node-fork is using a totally separated new pipe channel when used in node 0.4.x and with the command option.
• If node-fork is used with node 0.6.x then standard stdout and stderr descriptors are created on the child (thats not implemented with fork in node 0.6.x yet, see here).
• The silent option can be used to stop child output to stdout/stderr.
• Its is not possible to send a handle with the send() function as can be done with nodejs 0.6.x. (pull request implementing this is much appreciated!!)

Installing node-fork

node-fork can be installed from NPM with:

npm install node-fork

Using node-fork

The code almost speaks for itself: see the example directories showing visisble and invisible examples!!

Following is a invisible example of node-fork use.

Parent code example:

var path = require('path'),
    inspect = require('util').inspect,
    fork = require('fork').fork;
 
var child;
 
try {
  child = fork(path.join(__dirname, 'child.js'));
} catch (err) {
  console.log('Error forking child: ', inspect(err));
  process.exit(1);
}
 
child.on('message', function(msg) {
  console.log('The child says: ', msg.hello);
});
 
child.send('This is your parent!');

Child code example (child.js):

process.on('message', function(msg) {
  console.log('The parent says: ', msg);
  process.nextTick(function() {
    process.exit(0);
  });
});
 
process.send({ hello: 'I am alive!'});

Building node-fork

To build node-fork and run the tests after checking it out from git:

make test

or to use a direct install script do:

./install

For nvm multi compilation do:

./install-multiple

Author: Sander Tolsma

Contributors: Tom Yandell, Bradley Meck

Documentation License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Copyright (c)2011 TTC/Sander Tolsma

Code License

MIT License

Copyright (c)2011 TTC/Sander Tolsma

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.